<div dir="ltr">Hi,<div><br></div><div style>Frederik, </div><div style><br></div><div style>Thanks for the compare & contrast and I am happy you have enjoyed SOTM US. I am very happy you could make it and that you got a chance to (re-)connect with members of the US and international community. </div>
<div style><br></div><div style>I have attended a FOSSGIS or two and can relate to your experience. They are very well attended, very professionally run. High quality talks, on average a little more technology-/developer-oriented - as are the attendees, I have a feeling.</div>
<div style><br></div><div style>Serge - agreed the sprint day spaces were perhaps not ideal, but I think we got a lot out of them nonetheless. The turnout was amazing. It is hard to get a good space to allow for breakouts etc for so many people while on a budget. I think given the constraints you did a great job organizing this! So thank you!</div>
<div style><br></div><div style>And point taken re: the lightning talks. It was a tough call with so many good submissions and we wanted to keep the # of tracks down to two. Next year, I want to re-introduce them for sure.</div>
<div style><br></div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Tue, Jun 18, 2013 at 3:00 PM, Serge Wroclawski <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:emacsen@gmail.com" target="_blank">emacsen@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">Frederik,<br>
<br>
Thank you for this valuable feedback, in particular regarding the sprints.<br>
<br>
I feel very badly about how the sprints went, and I want to go into<br>
detail why, and what I'm going to try to do next year about them.<br>
<br>
First, I want to say that for those people who were calling this a<br>
"hack day", I don't blame you, for two reasons, but that I hope this<br>
changes in the future.<br>
<br>
1. OSM does not have institutional experience with sprints<br>
<br>
It was evident to me that many OSMers were interested in the sprints,<br>
but had only attendeded hack days, so to them, the terms were<br>
synonymous. They are not.<br>
<br>
A sprint is far more organized, more like BoF sessions going on, each<br>
with their own space. Imagine if a conference tried to have every BoF<br>
going on simultaneously in one space at the same time. This wouldn't<br>
work, and so what we had at the event was the equivalent.<br>
<br>
2. There were not sufficient resources were not put into the sprints<br>
<br>
Running sprints is expensive. It requires multiple rooms, or a very<br>
large room with lots of room for groups to work independently of one<br>
another, out of each others way<br>
<br>
In addition, I had expected that we would have a session for<br>
lightening talks, as we'd had in previous years. Lightening talks are<br>
key to getting sprints going, as it gives the opportunity for sprint<br>
organizers to talk about their project and lay out the goals for the<br>
sprints (which are very result-oriented).<br>
<br>
It was a surprise to me that we didn't have lightening talks, and by<br>
the time I found out, it was too late to change the situation, and so<br>
there wasn't any coordinated efforts around the sprints.<br>
<br>
Lastly, the number of days we were sprinting changed from two, to one,<br>
back to two, and the information about the sprints changed on the<br>
website. This lead to a lot of confusion in folks' mind.<br>
<br>
<br>
The feedback I received has been very positive on this topic, though,<br>
with more developers coming together than we had ever had before at a<br>
single OSM event (roughly 10% of attendees attended one or both sprint<br>
days). There is clear willingness by the community to work on<br>
challenging technical issues.<br>
<br>
I am hopeful that given the amount of interest, that sprints will be<br>
featured next year, and will be given proper resources. In addition,<br>
we should re-introduce the lightening talks, and bring up the sprints,<br>
and sprint coordination, at the opening ceremony, and again at a<br>
closing ceremony (which we also didn't have this year).<br>
<br>
<br>
I'll be doing my best to make sure this happens next year so that we<br>
move towards a more successful sprint in 2014.<br>
<span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888"><br>
- Serge<br>
</font></span><div class="HOEnZb"><div class="h5"><br>
_______________________________________________<br>
Talk-us mailing list<br>
<a href="mailto:Talk-us@openstreetmap.org">Talk-us@openstreetmap.org</a><br>
<a href="http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-us" target="_blank">http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/talk-us</a><br>
</div></div></blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><div><br></div>-- <br>Martijn van Exel<br><a href="http://oegeo.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">http://oegeo.wordpress.com/</a><br><a href="http://openstreetmap.us/" target="_blank">http://openstreetmap.us/</a>
</div>